Divorce reveals the true character of the participants, Mary Jo Eustace says, adding, ‘I got my mojo back.’Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
"I'll give you lack of discretion," huffs Mary Jo Eustace, leaning over the edge of a table as she pushes her long hair over her shoulder and sharpens the gaze of her blue eyes.
A host of the popular W Network cooking show He Said, She Said, alongside Ken Kostick, she had minimal Canadian-style celebrity until her husband, Dean McDermott, dumped her to marry Tori Spelling in 2006 after meeting the Hollywood heiress and actor on the Montreal set of a Lifetime movie.
For both Ms. Eustace and her ex, divorce made their names. And I have asked- nicely - about her motives for writing her new book, Divorce Sucks: W hat to Do When Irreconcilable Differences, Lawyer Fees and Your Ex's Hollywood Wife Make you Miserable , when it feeds that tabloid culture she says she abhors.
The attention her divorce got in the gossip pages was a complete surprise, she explained earlier.
"It wasn't like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt or anything of that level, but there seems to be a fascination and it continues to be … I never thought it would be such a big deal," she says.
To prove her take-the-high-road discretion, she launches into a story about a "major producer" in Los Angeles who called her in the summer to pitch an idea for a show in which she would star. The scene was quintessential La-La land, she reports.
The producer strutted in to "take" the meeting. "You're older, you're dating and you're probably looking for love," he said soothingly as he began his pitch, she recalls. He was proposing a reality show about her dating life. He lobbed an earnest look in her direction. "We want you to be happy. That's the end goal," he explained.
"Who's we?" she asked.
"Well, Tori and Dean and I, we just want you to be happy. We're really concerned about it, and it would make for great postmodern-docudrama-family-divorced viewing."
Her ex and his new wife, who star in their own reality show, Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood , would be the producers.
"There is not enough money in the universe to make me do this trash," she replied hotly. "How would this empower me? This would victimize me."
Then she pitched her own idea - a show called Second Act about helping midlife women reinvent themselves. He wasn't interested.
A pilot for the concept, with Ms. Eustace as host, has just been announced with the W Network in Canada.
She acknowledges that the divorce has made her more visible, but she rejects the idea that she was (or is) interested in fame. "I would say this," she says. "No. 1, I'm not an actress. I don't pretend to be. I do my hosting and my cooking."
But she and Mr. McDermott had moved to Los Angeles to further their careers just before the split. She still lives there.
"Mine was never an on-camera career," she explains. "If that worked, great. We moved to support his career. Yeah, definitely this experience has made me more visible and more famous, but at what cost? It was a horrible divorce, horribly public and humiliating."
Then why do the book and make it more public?
"Because it was all so surreal. We had just moved to L.A. We had adopted a baby. [They also have a 10-year-old son.]… Then there was an article and a picture of Tori and Dean in a passionate embrace with all sorts of unnamed sources saying our marriage was troubled, that he wasn't leaving his kids but he was leaving me, that I was 62 years old, embittered and crazy … my whole life was being rewritten … and then, because of all the publicity surrounding this, my daughter's adoption was jeopardized. … I was thinking about how am I going to survive this."
Her book has been an empowering experience. she says. Funny and far more discreet than many assumed it would be - and than its title implies - it is a reflection of the wit she is known for as a banter-happy television host.
"I hope all those nasty tabloid shows will have me on to talk about the book, because I have a sense of humour about it," she says. "My husband left me for Tori Spelling! I get it. I've been the butt of it. But I also own it, and I've also moved beyond it."
She needs to work to support her family, even though she receives spousal and child support. She is proud of how she rebounded and hopes her story can help others.
"I got my mojo back. I am surprised at what I had to tackle and what I came through. Divorce brings you to your knees. You see the world differently. … A lot of women in marriage acquiesce. We abdicate our responsibility - financially, emotionally - [in order]to support the family and our husbands, and I did. I played that role. A lot of times I didn't go on my instinct and do things I should have done for myself, because I wasn't a priority."
Divorce, as with any hardship, reveals the true character of the participants, she adds. That her ex has descended into cheesy, fame-seeking reality television is only one aspect of his character, she says. "The real thing would be my daughter's adoption," she says, explaining that he relinquished all responsibility for the child, now 4. "That is real character-displaying."
As for Ms. Spelling, "she has not impressed me."
How her husband has behaved, including putting their son on his reality show without her permission, is part of what she calls "a combination platter" that develops when one ex-spouse remarries.
"When another partner is involved, you get the two-for-one deal," she quips. "I know the person I was married to and the issues we may or may not have had. There are all sort of reasons why they could feed off each other. … To see him in the storm of the Spelling family drama, it's too strange."
Ms. Eustace, 47, epitomizes the midlife woman: honest, wise-cracking and unapologetic. She admits to wanting to "look good" as she goes out into the world on a book tour as the wronged ex.
"Did I get ready by going to a Swiss clinic to do Botox and bloodletting?" she jokes when asked what she did to prepare. "I did my Botox in January last year … and I did it again in September before the book tour," she says, pointing to her brow area. "Of course I wanted to look pleasant for people to view."
But that doesn't mean she worries about what people think. Certain of self, as many are in midlife, she uses that knowledge as her anchor. "Me as scorned ex, embittered, media whore?" she wonders aloud, anticipating how others may think of her. She flips her luscious hair over her shoulder again. "Just a nice Canadian girl who found herself in a difficult situation."